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7 Days, 7 Drinks, 7 Reasons to Stick to Your New Year’s Resolution

7 Days, 7 Drinks, 7 Reasons to Stick to Your New Year’s Resolution

How to keep healthy, satisfying smoothies (and more) a part of your diet

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Promises to yourself are often the hardest to keep, so it’s no surprise that most of us find ourselves struggling to keep even the simplest of New Year’s Resolutions. But after all, we all want to kick off the year feeling revived—not deprived—so to stave off the unwanted disappointment this year, we’re setting you up with a feel-good goal that is both simple to achieve and incredibly delicious. Instead of hunger-pang inducing juice cleanses or restrictive diets, keep yourself healthy, happy, and satisfied by adding our New Year’s selection of vibrant smoothies to your day (hey, we even threw in a milkshake for a more “balanced” diet). Not only are they quick to prepare and make use of a variety of fruits and vegetables, they’re easy to riff on—so resolution becomes more like routine.

How to craft the perfect smoothie

Before we start, there’s one thing we need to get straight: There’s not only one way to make a perfect smoothie! All you need is a high speed blender, like the Bosch VitaBoost, or even better, a vacuum blender, like the Bosch VitaMaxx, and a variety of different fruits (both fresh and frozen), vegetables, and other spicy, creamy, or sweet additions. From there, you can mix and match to create your ideal flavor profiles. Some of our favorites?

Avocado-mango smoothie

Avocado-mango smoothie

Carrot smoothie with apple and ginger

Carrot smoothie with apple and ginger

Use our suggestions below as a map to guide you through delightful combinations and unique ingredients and try out our latest smoothie recipes for a whole spectrum of inspiration from vibrant colors to silken textures.

Smoothie prep school

Making smoothies a regular part of your routine is simple—it just takes some planning ahead. Though you can find just about any fruit in frozen form at the supermarket these days, you can save yourself some money and do your own quality control by freezing fresh fruits at home.

The best fruits to freeze are bananas, avocados, mangoes, blueberries, and strawberries. Just clean the fruit and slice into pieces or freeze whole by laying them in a single layer on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet and transferring to the freezer. Once they’re frozen solid, you can transfer the fruits to a freezer bag and keep them in the freezer to use whenever the urge to whip up a smoothie strikes.

To save even more prep time, you can package all the fruits and vegetables you need for your favorite smoothies together in one freezer bag. Then, simply add them directly to the blender along with whatever liquid you need and voilà! However, even if you have a really powerful blender, for the smoothie-est texture, you should always let your frozen fruits and veggies thaw out a bit before blending.

Breakfast better with smoothie bowls

Smoothies can make a great breakfast on their own, especially if you prep them ahead and grab them to go on your way out the door. But you can also round off flavors and textures of your favorite smoothie by turning it into a more substantial smoothie bowl. It’s not just a pretty face—by adding more fresh fruits, nuts, seeds, and accoutrements there’s an extra boost in the nutrition department and extra ingredients help keep you satisfied even longer.

Matcha smoothie bowl with chia seeds

Matcha smoothie bowl with chia seeds

Take the time to enjoy your smoothie with a spoon and go wild with these healthy smoothie bowl toppings.

How should I store my smoothie?

Smoothies are usually best enjoyed right after you blend them up, as the contact with air, or oxidization, dulls the color and tampers with taste and texture. But new vacuum blending and vacuum sealing technologies have extended smoothie life, meaning you can now store them for up to 3 days in the fridge with nearly no color, texture, or taste changes. Try a vacuum blender equipped with vacuum sealing and to-go bottles, like the Bosch VitaMaxx.

If you don’t have a vacuum blender, you can store your smoothies in an airtight glass container for up to 24 hours with a bit of lemon or lime juice. After this period of time, you may notice the color change significantly and the smoothie itself won’t be nearly as tasty as it was when you first made it, but we have some other tips for saving leftover smoothies—just keep reading on.

How to save leftover smoothies

If you find yourself with any leftover smoothies that you want to save, you can freeze them in ice cube trays or popsicle molds. Once frozen, they can be popped out and blended up later or enjoyed straight from the freezer! Our favorite smoothies to enjoy as frozen pops?

Dairy-free blueberry, cinnamon, and honey smoothie

Dairy-free blueberry, cinnamon, and honey smoothie

Strawberry-banana smoothie with healthy coconut granola

Strawberry-banana smoothie with healthy coconut granola

Other drinks to rotate into your routine

Though smoothies are by far the most popular of the healthy blended drinks out there, let’s not ignore the other contenders. Simple blends of vibrant citrus juice, crushed ice, herbs, and fresh fruit can make refreshing slushies. Our favorite combination pairs pomegranate and lime, but you can try watermelon and mint, blueberry and lemon, or strawberry and basil.

Pomegranate slushie

Pomegranate slushie

Another blended drink that can add some variety to smoothie-loving households are milkshakes—made with ice cream, milk, and other mix-ins. Though they’re often more substantial than a healthy drink, if you’d like to make your milkshakes a little healthier, you can choose low-fat, no refined sugar, high-protein, or even dairy-free ice creams, low-fat or plant-based milks, and add fruits of your choice for more nutritional value. We boosted our milkshake with dark chocolate, coconut milk, and toasted coconut.

Dark chocolate and coconut milkshake

Dark chocolate and coconut milkshake

Start meeting your goal with our 7 days of 7 drinks

The first week of something new, from an amped up gym routine to moving to a new city, is always the hardest. The key is to set achievable, short term goals—like our magic number 7 days, 7 drinks plan. Armed with our tips and tricks, you might just surprise yourself when, 5 days in, you’re enjoying our dairy-free blueberry, cinnamon, and honey smoothie and find yourself eager to try what’s next. After 7 days of 7 drinks, you’ll have the tools and knowledge you need to keep the healthy breakfasts, snacks, and even little desserts, going with your own concoctions—no recipe needed.

7 days, 7 drinks

7 days, 7 drinks

  • 00:14 min.
  • 11.6k views

What are your favorite ways to blend up smoothies and other healthy drinks? Have any tips on saving smoothies or using up the leftovers? Let us know in the comments!

Published on January 5, 2019

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